zinelib's reviews
524 reviews

I read these books out of order, having started with Class and followed up with Maid. In Class, Land talks about a professor calling her writing relentless, and I can see why. Maid shows how inescapable poverty is. Land is always one car accident or daughter's illness away from homelessness. In fact, when the book starts, she is transitioning out of a homeless shelter, and her middle class safety net, her mother is being a total dick to her. The mom and stepdad go out to lunch with Stephanie and expect her to pay. When she says she can't, that all she can cover is her own hamburger, they take her last $10 for it. 

I hire a housecleaner sometimes, and after listening to Land talk about the work, I'm going to seriously reconsider the work I ask them to do and consider giving exorbitant tips.  

Soila is so stifled by her single, entrepreneur mother in Kenya that she convinces her mother to let her go to college in America. She goes to Barnard, but the author herself went to Columbia, and it kind of shows. She graduates around the turn of the century and goes to work for a boutique investment bank. (That part works for Barnard and Columbia.) The novel is about Soila's relationships--with her mother, her Black American roommate, boyfriends (one Kenyan, one Black American), and, of course, herself. 

Other than the boyfriends, and Soila's father, who died when she was five, this is a story about women. In addition to her mother, her family compound houses her four aunts and her grandmother. Her college and beyond roommate Leticia and her newfound half sister Aisha are also powerful forces in her life. 

I didn't highlight anything as I read, so I don't know what to tell you about the book, other than it was an easy read, even for someone who's mostly reading genre and YA lately due to concentration issues. 

I've realized I don't care for the romance trope where the would-be lovers love each other and feel like they have to hide it. That said, it isn't too painful in this book. The characters are lovable--Brad more than Celine because the perfect YA boyfriend can still be perfect with OCD. 

Whoops--I listened to this before I listened to Maid, and it's basically a continuation. That's fine--doesn't impact the storytelling, at least as far as I can guess, just dumb on my part. Land recounts her senior year of college (in her mid-30s) and all the financial and relationship fuckery that made it the hardest, hungriest year of her life, but hopefully didn't impact her daughter Emilia as intensely. Land is a good narrator--straightforward with just hints of emotion in her voice at the my trying parts of her memoir. I'm eager for the next book, and I want to find out what happened to that dickhead in the creative writing department who said that kids don't belong in graduate school. Like that's her call to make!

I read two Sookies back to back, so I don't entirely remember what the deal was with each. It kind of doesn't matter. They're both good comfort reads.

One thing I believe TrueBlood failed to do in its Eric-has-amnesia arc is show him loving Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

I read two Sookies back to back, so I don't entirely remember what the deal was with each. It kind of doesn't matter. They're both good comfort reads. 

I think in this one, we meet a hot, rich werewolf named Alcide (pronounced Al-sea) and Alcee (pronounced Al-say), who's maybe a kind of lazy cop? I'm starting to realize that Sookie isn't much of a girl's girl, or maybe that's just the case with women rivals who want to kill her. 

Is an age gap romance May / December if the lovers are twenty years apart? Or is that more like May / August? The romance starts as a one-night stand. College senior Cassie sees 38-year-old Erin in a bar and immediately Wants. Her. Erin, recently divorced from her husband goes with it, and a very good time is had in the back of Erin's car.

The next day, Cassie and Erin meet again when Cassie joins her friend, Parker--who turns out to be Erin's daughter--to breakfast. It's parents weekend! Thanks for the welcome wagon, Cassie! Parker is a first year student, so at least Erin isn't fucking someone her own age?

Speaking of fucking, there's a lot of sex in this book, as there is with the last book I read by Wilsner, Cleat Cute. I liked that the climax (lol) isn't exactly what you might expect. 

This book starts out like a light reality dating show romp, but it goes to a dark (and kind of funny, maybe?) place pretty quickly. 

The cast and crew are on a remote island. The former are staying in a B&B run by a seemingly benign, widowed lesbian named Maggie. 

The whole thing kind of doesn't make sense, but it's fun and is over quickly. Justice for Patricia!

This is a sweet, fun memoir by a trans teen who knew who she was from before she could speak. And her parents believed her! They were solid advocates. 

Jennings is an enthusiastic narrator. Nickelodeon vibes, but not in a creepy way. 

College sophomore Sav's transformation from closeted party teen to full-time queer is well underway until it hits a snag: her hometown bestie is getting married. Izzie is a 20-year-old sorority girl. Her betrothed is an ROTC senior about to be deployed (or whatever), and Izzie is doing the whole thing: the wedding party with all the heteronormative bells and whistles. 

That's not who Sav is anymore, but the real problem is Izzie's brother, with whom Sav has a [spoiler] past.

In the midst of all the drama, or maybe at the heart of it, Sav is taking Intro to Gender Studies, a seminar class (with a hot nonbinary person, Wes, who only wears green, a detail that is never explained. Is it a Great Gatsby literary allusion???). 

I fully enjoyed reading this book and upon finishing it immediately looked for others by the same author. Also, the cover makes me think of the hair chop a lot of girls do in college. I did! And lol: